Growing...growing...gone

I guess after our exciting summer I haven't found anything to blog about. Life has been simple, but wonderful. Our girls are so much fun-I'm afraid they will grow up too fast!!
We have had a lot of fun this beautiful fall going outside to parks and around the neighborhood.

Scooting

Now if Emily wants something she can get to it!! (The shiny, springy doorstop is one of her favorite toys!)

Ecola State Park

We made our last trip to the coast last weekend. We are sad to leave the ocean. We went to Ecola State Park and hiked in the mountains and amazing forest! We saw some pretty huge trees, but it was too foggy to see Tillamook Rock Lighthouse from the viewpoint. Afterward we hiked down to Indian Beach. Goodbye beautiful coast!!

Mt. Saint Helens

We got to go see Mt. St. Helens on Saturday!! It was amazing! We went to the West viewpoint (the Johnston Ridge Observatory). We hiked around for a while and got to see different views of the volcano and the changed valley and surrounding mountainsides.

Low tides!!

Here are some of the things you can see on Haystack Rock during a low tide.

Rick and Camille Visit!

Rick and Camille came to visit us last weekend and we had so much fun! We got to go see Haystack Rock on Cannon Beach at a low tide-there were lots of starfish and anemones.



and huge mussels!



Nate and Rick had fun flying Nate's 2-string kite.



Best of all-we got to have a campfire on the beach and roast hot dogs and marshmallows. (It takes a long time to get a fire going strong on a windy beach!!)





Other highlights while they were here:

Watching episodes of "Gunsmoke" on TV Land.com

They taught us how to play Discombobulation and Greed

Rick came in our primary class on Sunday and kept the crayons from the kids until it was time for coloring

Getting clam chowder and salt water taffy

Jack Family Vacation

Nate's entire family was able to come up to Oregon for a family vacation last week. We had so much fun on the Oregon Coast!

Alden and Kira were even able to come early, so we were able to do some fun things with them first. We heard that the place to go in Portland is "Voodoo Doughnuts" where they make all kinds of crazy doughnuts. The shop was pretty scary, but the doughnuts were delicious!!



We also went to Multnomah falls and the other large waterfalls nearby. They were magnificent! We hiked up to the top of "Horse Tail Falls" and there was another waterfall, "Pony Tail Falls." It was fun to walk behind it and see the falls from a new angle!




Everyone else arrived on Sunday, July 4th and we had a big sleepover in our 2 bedroom apartment. Monday we headed out to the coast. We went to Astoria and the lighthouses in Washington on Monday.



Northhead Lighthouse-we even got to take the tour this time with other people there to watch the girls.



"Captain Jack" got to go on a treasure hunt on Cannon Beach for his 50th birthday!! He followed the directions on his treasure map to find an amazing treasure chest (built by Alden and Kira) filled with presents. Liesl painted a beautiful map of Cannon Beach as well!




Jessica sure loved seeing her cousin Carter!




Yaquina Bay lighthouse.



The biggest highlight of the trip (at least for the men) was a crabbing trip. They got to go out on a fishing boat with some professional crabbers and learn how to catch crab. They were only allowed to keep the large male crabs only about 10 percent of what they actually caught. The whole group caught 70 crabs!! (Nate and I spent the following week eating his crabs.)





You can tell by this video they had WAY too much fun!